If the arresting party was hoping toreason with Jesus and get him to avoid causing a stir during the feast that might draw in Roman troops, or if they were hoping at worst to lock him away until after Passover, they may well have been trying to avoid an eruption of violence, even when provoked. The relevant passages in the Gospels of John and Luke, KJV, read: 10 Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. Luke 22:51b, NKJV - "And He touched his ear and healed him." This story is included in all four Gospel accounts, but only Luke chooses to tell us that Jesus stopped in the midst of the tumult to touch Malchus's ear and heal it. So Luke obviously made it all up, but why? have gathered to try him.". Although the other writers mention the event, Luke is the only one who records the miracle. Here is a nice opportunity to do some source criticism, given the elements that are the same and those that are different. is inside being interrogated right now," says one. His ear is whole, the bleeding stopped, only his blood-soaked cloak to indicate that there ever was a wound. If so, how close was it? I cant imagine a univocalized meaning of the term . There is no historical embarrassment. Your email address will not be published. When the Lord opens our eyes, we can see how much damage we do with our fighting. John 18:10 tells us that Peter is the one who strikes with his sword. I realize this is site is about debunking Christianity, but as Stuart Chase so aptly put it For those who believe, no proof is necessary; for those who dont, no proof is possible.. According to John's Gospel ( 18:10 ), the servant's name was Malchus. Euler: A baby on his lap, a cat on his back thats how he wrote his immortal works (origin?). Sometimes they will also give a different bent to the same story. He begins to wobble, blackness is engulfing And he touched his ear, and healed him" (Luke 22:50-51). " And he touched his ear and healed him. And what we know reveals that the story of the arrest of Jesus is fiction, and piss-poor fiction at that. 12Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. Zeal without knowledge can be disastrous. by the accepted 6/7 letters, then Mark as the seed of the other 3 If not, his healed ear would have been a mighty testimony against him all the days of his earthly life. Secondly, he would swing his sword horizontally (side to side). As Malchus strains his ear his whole ear he can hear But Jesus answered, 'No more of this!' And he touched the man's ear and healed him" (Lk. reflects Malchus. help you, Malchus?". According to John, one of the disciples, the Apostle Peter, being armed with a sword, cut off the servant's ear in an attempt to prevent his Master's arrest. Anyone who reads my blog regularly knows that I do not consider the mythicists who actually participate in the scholarly process to be pseudoscholars. I simply judge them to be unpersuasive. I've always been fascinated by the story of Peter cutting off the ear of the servant of the high priest. His ear is whole, the bleeding stopped, only his Malchus was the head servant of the High Priest. catches up. They move Friday after the First Sunday in Lent. . hellenists that want to coopt the Jewish scripture without to be really Jewish. Probably. He is an agent of Jesus' arch enemy, Because another excludes it doesn't mean that it is false. much more valuable than what is actually present to us. (51) But Jesus answered and said, "Permit even this.". I shall have to read it, too. Peter was again putting his actions into play before thinking of the consequences. You said nothing more than what I have said there many times including what happens when anyone calls his bluff and actually follows up his links etc. When the soldiers arrive to arrest Jesus, Peter attacks the servant of the High Priest, cutting off his ear with a short dagger (). Luke was making a legal case that was deliberately selective so as to win influence. Whatever the case, the high priest's servant got his ear back. The synoptics say (okhlos) multitude.) none of our enemies would have believed but that they had met and soaks his hair and beard to dissolve the remaining blood. As High Priest, Christ stopped the flow of this mans blood, but He would soon allow His own blood to flow. Malchus is an example of a common enemy of Jesus in the Bible. Thanks for contributing an answer to Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange! Christ possessed all the power to serveto heal and to bring peaceyet He was seized and bound to suppress His good works. 7Again he asked them, Who is it you want?, 8Jesus answered, I told you that I am he. together, and had written what they wrote by some human compact; been born and raised in Jerusalem; if Acts is right, he had citizenship from birth, perhaps as a descendent of a manumitted slave maybe from a Judean taken captive in a previous generation, like the members of the synagogue of the Libertinoi (Acts again, alas) whose children would presumably have been brought up in Jerusalem speaking both Aramaic and Greek. However, while John doesn't give us this information, the other gospels tell us that Jesus quickly told Peter, "Enough!" and went to Malchus, touching his ear and healing it. The man who lost -- and recovered his ear, All four accounts tell us that one of Jesus' companions (Peter, according to John) drew a sword, swung it towards Malchus, and "cut off his ear.". The reason for this letter, is to give a very accurate account of what Jesus said and did. Also, click here for a map of where Jesus performed miracles. qualifier for classical Greek culture. rev2023.3.3.43278. All the sliced his ear clean off. Did any DOS compatibility layers exist for any UNIX-like systems before DOS started to become outmoded? But before being bound, Jesus would do one last act of healing with those blessed hands, and that on an enemy who had come to bind His hands. I have enough grasp of Paul to take seriously the idea that It does not say anything about picking up a detached ear, reattaching it, regrowing it, or questioning the fact that Jesus was a healer as had previously and amply been proven prior to his arrest. At the same time He was a merciful High Priest towards Malchus. thinks the servant. Malchus is aghast at what he has done, at his part in this attributed to Jesus might make more sense if interpreted as a By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. So Peter cut his ear off, yet Jesus healed him. Doubting an Oral Tradition behind the Gospels: The Parables, Why Christianity Happened The Secular Approach, 2, Book of Revelation Annotated List of Posts, Daniel Gullottas Review of Richard Carriers, Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son (Levenson), Ending of the Gospel of Mark (16:8) ANNOTATED INDEX, Genre of Gospels, Acts and OT Primary History: INDEX, Historical Methods (with reference to the study of Christian Origins/Historicity of Jesus), Plato and the Biblical Creation Accounts (Gmirkin), Thanks, but sadly no. Its sufficient to see Peter as icon of true Proto-catholics but false Judeo-Christians, i.e. So how was Jesus able to heal Malchus, the servant of the high priest, after his right ear was cut off (read Luke 22:50-51)? To see the complete list,& More, The Net Pastors Journal, Eng. I will have to learn some more data about which language ", "I think you have a high quality blog that provides a positive public service by discussing academic topics within a wider audience. Its the same reason why Luke didnt include the visit of the Magi. I did not intend to write such a long comment, but I think I can reel Will we see Malchus in heaven? I dont really care whether he was or wasnt; my thought was more like this: that he might as well have been, for all you can tell from the generally received letters. as a distinctly impermeable ruling class. 3pages. While we could look at some spiritual and symbolical implications regarding his ear, Malchus' experience tells us something else: That he lost his ear by the hand of a disciple of Christ. gentle eyes boring into his soul. models for even recent history, I would say that At the moment of the disciple cutting off the ear in Marks gospel Jesus says: 14:48 Am I leading a rebellion, said Jesus, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? The story in the Gospels is puzzling enough that it ought to be the focus of far more attention than it has been. cross, his body and face mutilated almost beyond recognition. Does he? I don't know if you would consider John Chrysostom a scholar (he was a Church Father), but this is what he said about disagreements and inconsistencies in the Gospels in general: What then? They cart the lot down to the nick. "No ), 36 Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise The first rule of such a game is to ignore the literary context of any passage and speculate as wildly as one can on as wide a range of possibilities as one can imagine that might have happened quite independently of anything we read. time. What is this? paraphrases, if not transmission of quasi-verbatim statements by Jesus himself, shadows among the gnarled olive trees. There is exactly nothing Jewish about the Aramaic language, it is a language of imperial domination. Luke included it precisely because he wanted the Romans to be sympathetic to the Christian message. Armed with swords and clubs and torches, a band of about two hundred soldiers and temple guards arrived in Gethsemane, led by Judas. He must run to report what had happened. In this threatening situation, Jesus could have chosen to perform a miracle for his own benefit, to avoid his impending arrest. What this site is about is set out in the About Vridar page. same result. I believe that Malchus symbolizes the many unbelievers who, in their attempt to either come to Christ or ridicule Him, get hurt by careless Christians who don't know the love of God yet. Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it, and struck the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. been influenced by Philo, or another public writer incognito, ear open for a seditious comment he can report back to Jesus ruled in a world with no religion. . He was not armed. Jesus quickly rebuked his disciple, saying . The fact that Malchus was "the servant of the high priest" (Luke 22:50 . We take note of the many enemies who threaten us; we become very anxious and perhaps even angry when we see the cause of evil advancing. most powerful Jew in Israel. John. Vridar: Musings on biblical studies, politics, religion, ethics, human nature, tidbits from science (http://vridar.org/) by Neil Godfrey", -- Klaas Spronk, - Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXI, 3/4 (2014). The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Water Into Wine (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Water Into Wine (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Nobleman's Son, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: The Great Catch of Fish, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Exorcism in the Synagogue, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Peter's Mother-in-Law, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Leper (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Leper (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Leper (Part Three), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Paralytic (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Paralytic (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Cripple by a Pool (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Cripple by a Pool (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Cripple by a Pool (Part Three), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Withered Hand (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Withered Hand (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Centurion's Servant (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Centurion's Servant (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Centurion's Servant (Part Three), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Raising a Widow's Son, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Stilling a Storm, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Two Demon-Possessed Men Healed (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Two-Demon Possessed Men Healed (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Two Demon-Possessed Men Healed (Part Three), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Woman With a Flow of Blood, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Resurrecting Jairus' Daughter, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Two Blind Men (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Two Blind Men (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Feeding the Five Thousand (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Feeding the Five Thousand (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Walking on the Water (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Walking On Water (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Exorcising a Syro-Phoenecian (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Exorcising a Syro-Phoenician (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Deaf-Mute (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Deaf-Mute (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Feeding the Four Thousand, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing the Blind Man from Bethsaida, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Exorcising a Young Boy (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Exorcising a Young Boy (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: The Coin in the Fish's Mouth, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Man Born Blind (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Man Born Blind (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Man Born Blind (Part Three), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Stooped Woman (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Stooped Woman (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing a Man With Dropsy, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: The Resurrection of Lazarus (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: The Resurrection of Lazarus (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Ten Lepers Healed, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Blind Bartimaeus, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: The Withering of a Fig Tree, The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Malchus' Ear (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: A Second Large Catch of Fish (Part One), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: A Second Large Catch of Fish (Part Two), The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Healing Malchus' Ear (Part One). amateur research enthusiast who publishes discourse that Just before his action, he had asked Christ, Lord, shall we strike with the sword? However, he did not wait for an answer (Luke 22:49-50). . Jesus compares the action of the disciple with that of a lestes the name given to insurgents against Rome and the role assigned to Barabbas. a Greco-Roman mystery cult/school. I was trying to dispense with Acts, pointing out that it is the only ground for thinking he is not e.g. It must have happened quickly. Mark doesn't mention it, because it's not part of his bigger theme he wants his readers to learn. identity for Judeans. Rev. A lot of respected scholars are only, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2014/09/an-interpolation-in-1-thessalonians.html#comment-1598470837, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2014/09/defining-pseudoscholarship.html#comment-1609316537, https://vridar.org/2020/03/05/the-gospel-of-mark-as-a-dramatic-performance/, https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=145080#p145080.